By Panyasith Thammavongsa

Luang Prabang, the first world heritage of Laos will be the second province in Laos to launch a project to prohibit secondary school students from riding motorbikes to school.

The project aims to help reduce road accidents and traffic, saving family expenditure and protecting the environment.

This comes after Xayboury province instituted a similar project in 2005.

Deputy Head of Office of the Luang Prabang Education Department, Mr Chanpheng Luangvanna, said the province has launched the project in seven lower and higher secondary schools in urban areas.

?At the end of this month, we will organise a meeting to review, make conclusions and evaluate how it has been put into practice in these schools. Through our implementation, what we hope to see is satisfactory progress,? he said.

?The project also aims to help our students to avoid peer pressure to race motorbikes and engage in speeding or risky behaviour, and they will not be able to use motorbikes to travel far outside the town.?

?Riding bicycles is easy, and schools have plenty of space where they can be parked,? Mr Chanpheng said.

Students were mostly under 18 years of age. So, by driving to school they were already breaking the traffic rules which prohibited driving without a licence, he said.

Licences may only be granted to those 18 years of age or older.

Mr Chanpheng said there were about 7,000 students in the seven secondary schools in the provincial capital. Before the ban was instigated, nearly 2,000 of these rode motorbikes to and from school.

After the ban came into effect, nearly all of these students used alternative modes of transport to get to school.

While most families had embraced the ban, some parents still didn't have a full understanding and awareness of the project, which meant some students were still turning up on motorbikes.

Students who live a long way from their school can get special permission to use a motorbike if it is deemed to be necessary by the school's teachers.

?However, we are trying to limit the number of students using motorbikes to get to school. In the future we plan to build more upper secondary schools in other areas, especially in five group villages with shared schools,? Mr Chanpheng said.

?We can't do this yet because we don't have enough teachers, and some have to teach more than 20 hours a week.?

The building of more schools would help students who live remotely to attend a closer school and also allow more widespread enforcement of the motorbike ban.

There are 56 secondary schools in the province, with many in rural areas where distance is a contributing factor to access.

?We initiated the ban because we learnt from the example of Xayaboury province which was the first province to start this project,? Mr Chanpheng said.

Director of Xayaboury Education Department, Ms Bounphak Inthapanya, welcomed the decision by the authorities in Luang Prabang.

She said the project had discouraged students from riding motorbikes in Paklai district in 2005, where the ban was first imposed.

?Our project currently covers all 10 districts in Xayaboury province, and it is a very good achievement. The number of accidents has fallen and traffic congestion has decreased,? she said.

She said representatives from several provinces, especially Luang Prabang, Oudomxay and Xieng Khuang, had shown an interest in the project, with Luang Prabang the first to follow suit.

--Vientiane Times/ANN